Thursday, January 13, 2011

Jeanne Black

I looked up Jeanne Black on Wikipedia and was delighted to find a discography with exactly one entry. There is a transcendent absurdity to that.

I found this Rhino compilation at Records On Wheels, back when Rhino mattered, and that’s where I found this song. The album also had Rockin’ Round The Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee, I Want My Baby Back by Jimmy Cross and DOA by Bloodrock. Not easy to figure out what all those songs had in common, even after reading the liner notes.

• He’ll Have To Stay– An answer record to Jim Reeves' He’ll Have To Go. He’s quite the cad to hear her tell it. Unlike, say, Kitty Wells doing Honky Tonk Angels in answer to The Wild Side Of Life, this song uses the exact same melody as the Question song. (Ok, I know it’s not a “question song,”, but if there’s an answer song, there should be a question song, no?) And really, after hearing this, you can't hear the original the same way again. From the summer of 1960.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Jeanne Black is a wonderful lady. She is married to Guitar player, arranger, studio musician, actor, etc. etc. Billy Strange. They both live in the Nashville area. Billy played guitar on many hits of the 60's with other famous studio musicians known as "the Wrecking Crew" He also co-wrote songs for Elvis, and was Nancy Sinatra's arranger.